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This article reports and evaluates how a traditional approach to recruitment and selection in the Social Services Department of West Sussex County Council was superseded by a competency‐based approach. The authors discuss the impacts of external and internal changes on the local authority and the need to develop less subjective and more effective methods of recruitment and selection, at all levels. After describing and reviewing existing practices, they outline the results of an internal research investigation involving managers and personnel and training specialists. The research participants acknowledged the limitations of the existing recruitment and selection practices and recognised the need for a more competence‐based approach. This was clearly an important stage in the change process which the authors proceed to describe. Here, they highlight the key role of training and relationship‐building between line managers and personnel specialists. Examples are provided of traditional and competence‐based job descriptions, person specifications and forms of assessment. The authors conclude that the new system fits well into the department’s overall human resources strategy for improving workplace performance and reducing workplace conflict.

This article raises the question of to what extent functional flexibility is an operatively designed approach with which European companies confront current short‐term changes in their environment, and whether functional flexibility is integrated into long‐term human resource strategies. The proposition is tested that organisations with a strategic human resource management in the sense of a coordinated, objective‐oriented personnel management pattern, show a higher probability of using job rotation than organisations lacking a strategic‐oriented human resource management approach.

Using the Irish data from the Price Waterhouse Cranfield Project on International Strategic Human Resource Management, examines developments in flexible working practices in the Republic of Ireland. Reviews relevant literature and presents an overview of the Irish labour market context. The organizational level evidence presented on both non‐standard employment and functional flexibility indicates a trend towards greater flexibilization, but the emergence of the flexible firm scenario is not supported.

The purpose of the study is to identify the soft skills and abilities that are crucial to success in the fields of operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM), using the O*NET database and the classification of a set of professional figures integrating values for task skills and abilities needed to operate successfully in these professions.

The study used the O*NET database to identify the soft skills and abilities required for success in OM and SCM industries. Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the tasks required for the job roles and their characteristics in terms of abilities and soft skills. ANOVA analysis was used to validate the findings. The study aims to help companies define specific assessments and tests for OM and SCM roles to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the job position.

As a result of the work, a set of soft skills and abilities was defined that allow, through correlation analysis, to explain a large number of activities required to work in the operations and SCM (OSCM) environment.

The work is inherently affected by the database used for the professional figures mapped and the scores that are attributed within O*NET to the analyzed elements.

The information resulting from this study can help companies develop specific assessments and tests for the roles of OM and SCM to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the requirements of the job position. The study aims to address the need to identify soft skills in the human sphere and determine which of them have the most significant impact on the OM and SCM professions.

The originality of this study lies in its approach to identify the set of soft skills and abilities that determine success in the OM and SCM industries. The study used the O*NET database to correlate the tasks required for specific job roles with their corresponding soft skills and abilities. Furthermore, the study used ANOVA analysis to validate the findings in other sectors mapped by the same database. The identified soft skills and abilities can help companies develop specific assessments and tests for OM and SCM roles to measure individual attitudes and correlate them with the requirements of the job position. In addressing the necessity for enhanced clarity in the domain of human factor, this study contributes to identifying key success factors. Subsequent research can further investigate their practical application within companies to formulate targeted growth strategies and make appropriate resource selections for vacant positions.

Examines requirements of information professionals in the health sector, and ways career development can be enhanced. Includes analysis of job descriptions, categorising skills and roles, mapping profiles to other criteria, including health sector, and two statements for standards in higher education. Interviews with nine professionals confirmed findings of the job description analysis. There is a spectrum of skills, with clumps of traditional library skills, information analysis skills and a growing need for specialist skills. The statement provides a good basis for skills required. Providers need to encourage students towards “lifelong learning” to meet changing requirements.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the consequences of citizens' increased use of public e‐services for agency employees' work situation.

In order to accomplish the purpose of the paper the authors focus on the way in which the increased use of public e‐services also implies internal process and routine changes in public administration. The authors analyze work conditions for case officers at a government agency in Sweden by applying occupational ideal types to identify the specific work conditions in the studied case. The case study is based on qualitative data collected with a back office perspective.

The findings indicate a new hybrid organization where the increased use of e‐services challenges earlier demands for competence. The transformation of e‐government has implications for job codification, rule observation, job specification, and interaction with the general public.

The paper extends the knowledge on how the increased use of public e‐services affects back‐office work conditions, with an increased high level of complexity in work content, but with low level of work autonomy. It argues that studying back‐office work conditions is an important management issue in public administration research as well as practice.

Provides a basic framework for the hiring of employees. Covers areas such as job description, method of advertising, analysis of application and references. Continues with a brief look at interviewing and testing applicants, including the variety of tests available. Concludes by examining the procedures for offering the position to a candidate.

MORE than thirty national bodies, previously comparative strangers, have been brought into closer contact during the year. They have now collectively organised a National Productivity Year Conference to be held at Eastbourne in the closing days of November. It would be wrong to regard this as a finale; to apply to it the closing words of Vanity Fair: ‘Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.’

Circular economy has emerged as one of the most important approaches to addressing environmental challenges. Organizations have begun to act on their abilities to enhance their sustainability management to enable a circular economy. The role of organizational learning and green human resource management in the transition to a more circular economy remains unknown. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the inter-relationship between the factors of organizational learning and green human resource management, and it aims to rank the identified factors of manufacturing small and medium businesses (SMEs) based on their driving and dependency power and to detect the most substantial factors.

This study identified 11 organizational learning and green human resource management (GHRM) factors after conducting a thorough literature analysis and consulting with experts. To investigate the interaction of the indicated factors and to build their structural hierarchy, this study used the total interpretive structural modeling method. Further, Matriced Impact Croises Multiplication Applique (MICMAC) analysis was used to establish each factor’s driving and dependent power.

This study discovered that factors “Green separation” and “Organizational learning culture” were found to be significant; “Green performance management” and “Green health and safety management” were observed to be extremely reliant on the remaining GHRM factors.

The recommended framework has been established in the Indian background and is restricted to manufacturing SMEs. Still, the same framework can be applied to other sectors by slightly modifying it. Also, the analysis is based on the experts’ view and this may be biased. The findings of this study will help human resources managers and SME owner-managers clarify the most and least significant factors of organizational learning and GHRM and their relationships, leading to increased awareness of organizational learning and GHRM practices for enlightened environmental performance.

The proposed framework might facilitate decision-makers and practitioners to comprehend the relations between organizational learning and GHRM factors. This will support SME owner-managers in understanding the influence of one factor on another factor in manufacturing SMEs.

Until now, the protruding interest of researchers has been focused mostly on large manufacturing enterprises. However, manufacturing SMEs, which are much smaller when compared to large manufacturing companies, significantly contribute to the economy as well as environmental pollution. Thus, this study provides a vital contribution to the current literature by determining the suitable relationship between the organizational learning and GHRM components, as no previous studies focused on exploring the same using the total interpretive structural modeling approach in the Indian manufacturing SMEs environment.

This study was undertaken with the aim of surveying the perception of the two main stakeholders in procurement system; the contractors and the procurement officers on issues such as accountability, transparency, corruption, integrity and cronyism pertaining to the public procurement system in Malaysia.

Interviews were conducted over a nine‐month period in 2007 to gauge the perception of the procurement officers and contractors on procurement issues in Malaysia. The interview data were then transcribed and grouped according to six main themes; transparency, procurement policies and procedures and its implementation, personnel involved in the procurement system, estimation/budget/pricing, professionalism and ethics and timeliness.

One of the common complaints made by the contractors was prevalence of interference from outside parties and cronyism, which affects the awarding of contracts. The procurement officers were blamed for malpractice and non‐compliance to the policies and procedures of the procurement system.

The paper deals with sensitive issues and takes several months to successfully gather respondents who willing to give feedback on their experience with the procurement system. The data are first hand information and are carefully transcribed and categorized into categories to help better understanding of the issues raised by the respondents.

The paper deals with sensitive issues and takes several months to successfully gather respondents who willing to give feedback on their experience with the procurement system. The data are first hand information and are carefully transcribed and categorized into categories to help better understanding of the issues raised by the respondents and the private sector.